Chuck versus the Red Test
by Grayroc
Summary: We are back at the Traxx Restaurant in LA, as Sarah gives Chuck his orders to kill Perry. An A/U of how it might have gone


_A/N Season 3-11 The Final Exam was when I almost stopped watching the show. Ultimately the writers brought all the pieces together_

_and it worked out for Chuck and Sarah and I kept watching. This one-shot story goes into A/U at a point that will be obvious to all the canon devotees. What I would have liked to have happened at the restaurant. __Other much better writers than I have looked at the conflict that Chuck faced between his principles and his ambitions. Many of you will recognize the poem._

Chuck vs The Red Test

Traxx Restaurant –Union Station, LA 7:30pm

As Sarah slid the red dinner napkin with the gun hidden beneath it towards him, something strange happened to time. It slowed down, a second became a minute and a minute seemed like an hour. Chuck's eyes slowly looked down at the gun and he was almost overwhelmed with his feelings; they smashed into him as if they had all coalesced into a huge wave.

Then somewhere far off he heard Sarah**"****The final part of your mission is to kill him.****"**

Then he heard himself respond "Are you being serious right now? Are you kidding me? Kill him here, now? I can't do that."

And then Sarah said the words that rocked him**"****Then you won't become a spy.****"**

His mind was reeling trying to reconcile the thought that Sarah, dressed up to the nines and as beautiful as he had ever seen her, his Sarah was ordering him to kill Perry in cold blood. Then he flashed to a past Christmas and the fulcrum agent Mauser. He remembered how upset he had been when he saw Sarah kill him in cold blood surrounded by all the Christmas trees, it didn't seem to even touch her. She knew the impact watching her kill Mauser had had on him and how long it took him to get over it. Yet here she was telling him, no …ordering him to do the same thing to Perry.

How on earth had it all come down to this? As he looked up into Sarah's beautiful blue eyes, they weren't there. Instead he was looking at Agent Walker, with her impenetrable mission mask on. Her cobalt blue eyes conveyed little emotion, no sympathy, nothing he could latch onto. She was a CIA agent doing her job, carrying out her mission and dealing with an agent in training.

For a moment Chuck felt guilty for being the person responsible for changing Sarah back into Agent Walker. Prague had happened. He had rejected her heartfelt offer to run away with him; he had told her about doing the right thing, serving the greater good. In Prague he was really meeting his unfulfilled needs, he wanted and he needed to be a spy. He needed to make something of himself, to put five wasted years of moping after Jill behind him, to prove to Sarah that he was as good as Bryce and Cole, to become someone worthy of her love and her affection. Yes, Prague had been a disaster for him, a disaster for them and their relationship in so many ways. So he stayed in Prague and failed to become a spy, he couldn't cut it and had been washed out of the program by Beckman and sent home; and to add insult to injury he had also lost Sarah, she wanted nothing to do with him. If anything he was a bigger mess than when Jill had rejected him. Sarah leaving him had crushed him. He never wanted to feel like that again.

Since then, he had tried so hard to win her back, to reconnect with her, to set the clock back in time and make her forget that Prague had ever happened. Maybe it might have happened, maybe it might have worked. He had worked hard to master all that they were teaching him. But then Special Agent Daniel Shaw came onto the scene. In many ways he was Chuck's worst nightmare, handsome, a physical specimen that rivaled Devon, intelligent and every inch the recruiting poster boy for a CIA agent. He and Bryce were cut from the same mold. And of course the inevitable happened, Shaw and Sarah had hooked up. To be fair he and Hannah had also hooked up but at least he realized his mistake before he got in too deep, poor Hannah, he had treated her so badly.

Sarah's words replayed in his head. **"****Then you won't become a spy.****"**

Not become a spy!? If he didn't become a spy then that was it. His last chance to win Sarah back was over, gone. Chuck was having a hard time breathing he looked at her face but it didn't help him, her agent's mask was still securely in place. Shit, and last night during the stakeout he was sure that they were on the verge of reconnecting. She had opened up to him, just a little, a chink in her armour. There was a moment when he was sure they were going to kiss but then …. there it was Daniel Shaw's voice in his earbud destroying the moment.

Chuck voiced his fear "But if I if I can't do this, then-then then what'll I be?

Sarah replied, "**Then you'll be Chuck, and there is nothing wrong with that. That's all I can say. I'm sorry. The rest is your decision.****"**

Chuck was sure that he was in two places at once, sitting there across from Sarah and standing beside the table observing what was going on. It was weird and creepy and yet somehow fitted in with how time kept slowing down for him. Part of Chuck cried out don't lose Sarah again, not to Daniel Shaw, pick up the gun and do this. Perry is a traitor and he is responsible for nine agent's deaths and countless civilians. This is a sanctioned mission and will serve the greater good. You can do this Chuck. You have to do this. If you don't do this, if you don't kill Perry, say goodbye to Sarah forever and go back to your old life. Remember how miserable you were last time? Chuck was in agony because just this morning he was thinking of Rome and being a real agent. Sarah was supposed to be staying in DC but he had been sure that he could entice her to be with him once he became an agent. Pick up the gun Chuck. Pick up the Gun.

His mind drifted again, this time to his sister Ellie. What would Ellie think about her baby brother if she knew he was about to kill a man in cold blood? She had dedicated her life to healing the broken and the sick, she had taken an oath to do no harm. No he could never really tell her about what he was about to do. Another lie that would push them farther apart. But once he did this, once he killed Perry, it would be over. He would be an agent. He could have Sarah.

Two tables over Chuck noticed a middle aged couple and their children eating. The girl looked to be about 14 and my God, didn't she look like Ellie when she was younger with her long brown hair. The boy was about 9 or 10 and for just a second he and Chuck looked at each other. Their eyes locked. The look of sadness in the boy's eyes stirred Chuck and he wanted to go over and comfort the boy because he knew the sad feelings so well, especially when his Mom and Dad left him. Then just like that the boy looked away and the moment was gone. Then from somewhere else, on the edge of his consciousness a fragment of a poem he had seen on his father's desk many years ago popped into his mind.

_Out of the night that covers me,  
Black as the pit from pole to pole_

Chuck was terrified that he was starting to lose it, he needed to focus not remember half-forgotten poems. Then the rest of the verse came to him

_I thank whatever gods may be  
For my unconquerable soul.  
_

Then he snapped back to the present because Sarah was standing up and getting ready to leave so he said "Sarah, wait. Are-Are we absolutely sure about this guy?

"**Yes. Your target is Perry. Your orders are clear."**

"I don't know if I can do this."

"**The decision is yours, Chuck, but please know that there is no turning back."**

Chuck watched her as she started to put her coat on, she looked so beautiful tonight. Did she take a long time getting ready to see him, to make sure he would follow her orders? He couldn't lose her. If he did his life would be miserable, she was the love of his life. Then unbidden, the last verse of the poem moved from the edge of his mind to his tongue and he said it to himself in a soft whisper, without thinking.

_It matters not how strait the gate,  
How charged with punishments the scroll,  
I am the master of my fate,  
I am the captain of my soul._

Sarah was about to leave when Chuck stood up and said. "Sarah, you've forgot something."

"What, what have I forgotten Chuck?"

"The gun Sarah, I won't need it." He then went up to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek and said. "Be careful in DC, be safe, I'll always love you. Goodbye."

Chuck turned and walked away ready to go back to his old life. The sadness was now enveloping him and there were tears forming in his eyes because he felt like such a failure. Another fragment of the poem came to him, what was the name of the poem he had seen on his Dad's desk, he'd have to google it when he got home.

_I have not winced nor cried aloud.  
Under the bludgeonings of chance  
My head is bloody, but unbowed_

Chuck didn't notice Agent Sarah Walker's face, her agent's mask had fallen away and a softness and brightness had returned to her eyes as she watched him walk away. Sarah's phone rang, it was Shaw.

"Sarah is he going to do it?"

"No Shaw he isn't."

"Sarah, you'll have to take his place and take care of Perry."

"No Shaw, I've already passed my Red Test, why don't you take care of it. I have something else to take care of."

The End


End file.
